Violent crime's drop in '96 sets record for state

Steven A. Capps, EXAMINER CAPITOL BUREAU CHIEF

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, March 13, 1997

1997-03-13 04:00:00 PDT CALIFORNIA; OAKLAND -- SACRAMENTO - The number of violent crimes reported in California last year took its biggest one-year drop ever, Attorney General Dan Lungren said as he released his latest crime statistics report.

The report shows one of the largest drops in the city of Oakland, where the number of homicides dropped by 32 percent in 1996 compared with 1995.

California's crime rate may be the lowest since 1968, although it will be some time before final computations are made, officials said Wednesday.

The number of serious crimes reported - murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault - was down 12.2 percent in 1996 from 1995, Lungren said.

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It was the largest one-year drop in crime statistics ever reported in the state and marked four years in a row that the number of crimes reported to California's major local law enforcement agencies had dropped, he said.

"We need to understand the magnitude of what is happening in California," Lungren said. "We are not simply tagging along with the rest of the country. We are out-pacing it."

Lungren has credited California's "three strikes" law with reducing crimes, although other states without such a law also have seen reductions in crime.

Lungren, who has said he will run for governor next year, has released crime statistics every three months since taking office.

The new report, which covers all of last year, showed an 18.4 percent drop in the number of homicides statewide, a 4.3 percent drop in reported rapes, a 10.9 percent reduction in robberies and a 9.7 percent drop in aggravated assaults.

Burglaries were down 12.3 percent, and auto theft reports were down by 14.5 percent.

The state's overall crime rate, which represents the number of reported major crimes per 100,000 population, has been declining since 1991 and was 2,929 in 1995. In 1968, the rate was 2,553 major crimes per 100,000.

The new report was good news for Oakland. It showed a 14.5 percent drop in serious crime, better than the statewide average.

Last year, 93 homicides were reported in Oakland, down from 138 the year before, a 32.6 percent drop, according to Lungren's figures.

In San Francisco, serious violent crime was down 3 percent. There were 84 homicides reported last year, 15 fewer than the year before, for a 15 percent drop. Rape was down 2 percent in The City, robbery was down 14.4 percent, and assaults were down 1.6 percent.

In Berkeley, the number of serious crimes reported was down by about 6 percent. While the numbers of homicides and rapes were about the same - seven and 32, respectively - there was a 20 percent drop in the number of robberies reported and a 5 percent drop in the number of assaults.&lt;